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Curcumin is a widely researched and utilized natural product used for a variety of ailments including as a gastrointestinal aide and an anticancer agent. Curcumin however suffers from poor bioavailability. A strategy to circumvent poor bioavailability is to administer with an adjuvant or by synthetic modification. Herein we demonstrate the incorporation of curcumin into a self-degradable polymer by condensation with N,N′-di-Boc-L-cystine. The polymer is made self-degradable upon deprotection of the cystine amines. Degradation is confirmed by thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry. Curcumin retains its anti-cancer activity within the polymer showing activity against HT29 human colon cancer cells and DU-145 prostate cancer cells. The self-degrading polymer showed enhanced activity against HT29 cells compared to that of curcumin.

Hybrid microporous organosilica membranes for molecular separations made by acid-catalyzed solgel synthesis from bridged silsesquioxane precursors have demonstrated good performance in terms of flux and selectivity and remarkable hydrothermal stability in various pervaporation and gas separation processes. The availability of wide range of α,ω-bis(trialkoxysilyl)alkane and 1,4-bis (triethoxysilyl)benzene precursors allows tuning of membrane properties such as pore size and chemistry. This chapter presents an overview of the synthesis and application of hybrid organosilica microporous membranes in liquid and gas separation processes. After a concise discussion of the history of solgel-derived microporous ceramic membranes for molecular separations, the solgel chemistry of bridged silsesquioxanes and all relevant processing steps needed to obtain a supported microporous films suitable for molecular separations are discussed. The performance of these membranes is correlated with the membrane compositional properties, such as nature, stiffness and length of the bridging group, and details of the solgel process.

The electrospray process utilizes the balance of electrostatic forces and surface tension within a charged spray to produce charged microdroplets with a narrow dispersion in size. In electrospray deposition, each droplet carries a small quantity of suspended material to a target substrate. Past electrospray deposition results fall into two major categories: (1) continuous spray of films onto conducting substrates and (2) spray of isolated droplets onto insulating substrates. A cross-over regime, or a self-limited spray, has only been limitedly observed in the spray of insulating materials onto conductive substrates. In such sprays, a limiting thickness emerges where the accumulation of charge repels further spray. In this study, we examined the parametric spray of several glassy polymers to both categorize past electrospray deposition results and uncover the critical parameters for thickness-limited sprays. The key parameters for determining the limiting thickness were (1) field strength and (2) the spray temperature, related to (1) the necessary repulsive field and (2) the ability for the deposited materials to swell in the carrier solvent vapor and redistribute charge. These control mechanisms can be applied to the uniform or controllably varied microscale coating of complex 3D objects.

Coordination compounds of 5-chloroacetamido-1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-sulfonamide (Hcaz) with V(IV), Cr(lll), Fe(ll), Co(ll), Ni(ll) and Cu(ll) have been prepared and characterized by standard procedures (spectroscopic, magnetic, EPR, thermogravimetric and conductimetric measurements). Some of these compounds showed very good in vitro inhibitory properties against three physiologically relevant carbonic anhydrase (CA)isozymes, i.e., CA I, II, and IV. The differences between these isozymes in susceptibility to inhibition by these metal complexes is discussed in relationship to the characteristic features of their active sites, and is rationalized in terms useful for developing isozyme-specific CA inhibitors.

Complexes containing the anions of 5-benzoylamido-1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-sulfonamide and 5-(3-nitro-benzoylamido)-1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-sulfonamid as ligands, and V(IV); Cr(III); Fe(III); Co(II); Ni(II); Cu(II) and Ag(I) were synthesized and characterized by standard procedures (elemental analysis; IR, electronic, and EPR spectroscopy; TG, magnetic and conductimetric measurements). The original sulfonamides and their metal complexes are strong inhibitors of two carbonic anhydrase (CA) isozymes, CA I and II.